Thread: PA: More 'illegals' being caught

More 'illegals' being caught
Many found here on routine traffic stops.
Sunday News
Nov 01, 2009 00:21 EST

The car was headed east on Route 322 near Ephrata, moving erratically. When the driver made an illegal U-turn at Hahnstown Road, an Ephrata police officer pulled him over.

The driver didn't have identification, said Ephrata police Lt. Chris McKim. Neither did his four passengers. Police called the federal Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which determined the five men were probably illegal immigrants. A few hours later, federal officers arrived to transfer the men to the Department of Homeland Security.

That was in February, said Ephrata police Lt. Chris McKim. And it was the 11th time in six months, he said, that Ephrata police had reported suspected illegal aliens to federal authorities.

The pace has quickened since then.

According to newspaper records, 30 men and women suspected of being illegal immigrants have been taken into custody by various Lancaster County police departments and turned over to federal officials so far this year. It might be a record.

Police say the surge in arrests isn't the result of a crackdown. In Manheim Township, where 22 of the 30 suspected illegals were apprehended, Sgt. Thomas Rudzinski credits it to good policing: "We've become more proactive in trying to attack crime in areas that have seen an increase," he said, "and as a result of that we're doing more traffic stops and citizen contacts." That, he said, has simply led police to encounter more people who are in the country illegally.

Other factors might be at work. Ephrata Lt. McKim said the federal government itself seems more interested in the issue: "It used to be you'd call [about a suspected illegal immigrant] and they'd get back to you. Now it's an immediate response."

But civil libertarians and others who work with immigrants are concerned. Local police departments, they point out, don't have the authority to enforce immigration law unless they have a formal agreement with the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (none do).

"It's an area of the law that's undefined, but when [police] are asking the immigration question, at what point does it become illegal detention — and at what point does it turn into racial profiling?" asked Valerie Burch, an attorney with the Harrisburg office of the American Civil Liberties Union.

According to records, most of the arrests have come during traffic stops:

•Sept. 17, East Lampeter Township police took two suspected illegal immigrants into custody at North Oakview and Hobson roads.

•Sept. 15, Manheim Township police responded to a call about suspicious vehicles in the parking lot at Overlook Golf Course and arrested on immigration violations two men with city addresses.

•Aug. 23, Manheim Township police arrested a man with a city address at a construction site and "determined he was in the country illegally," according to a police press release.

•Aug. 8, Manheim Township police arrested on immigration violations a man with an Ephrata address, after a traffic stop in the 1600 block of Oregon Pike.

•July 23, Manheim Township police arrested 12 illegal immigrants, eight of whom were involved in a vehicle crash on Fruitville Pike, and another four stopped for a traffic violation on Harrisburg Pike.

•July 12, Manheim Township police arrested one man on an immigration violations after a traffic stop.

•May 24, Manheim Township police arrested five men on immigration violations after a vehicle stop in the 1800 block of Fruitville Pike.

•Feb. 24, Manheim Township police discovered that a man who had come to the police station to have his fingerprints taken after being charged with criminal mischief was an illegal immigrant.

•Feb. 10, as noted above, Ephrata police took the five men into custody after the traffic stop at Hahnstown Road.

In the Sept. 17 and Feb. 10 incidents, police identified the suspected illegal immigrants as natives of Mexico; their country of origin was not cited in other reports. Those identified by name all had Spanish surnames.

These are just the instances documented in media reports; there may be others. By contrast, local newspapers reported just five arrests of illegal immigrants last year.

None of the 2009 arrests were the result of raids.

In all cases, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE, asked local police to detain the suspects until federal officials came to Lancaster County to pick them up, or it asked local police to transport the immigrants to the York County Prison, one of the largest immigrant detention centers in the northeastern United States. From there, many are deported.

ICE is the largest investigative agency in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

There are no reliable estimates on how many illegal immigrants may be living or working in Lancaster County. According to a 2004 estimate by the Pew Hispanic Center, Pennsylvania has about 125,000 illegal immigrants; a 2007 report issued by state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-Butler County, put the number at 200,000 and asserted that more than 3,100 had been charged with crimes in recent years.

Troy Mattes, a Lancaster attorney who specializes in immigration law, said there's no indication that the number of illegal immigrants in the county has risen, although many of the predominant industries here — from agriculture to food-packing to construction — are among those that attract the most immigrant labor nationwide.

"Most [of those apprehended] are guys who get pulled over for minor traffic violations (e.g. tail light out) while others are picked up on DUI charges," Mattes wrote in an e-mail.

"It is very odd, the increase in arrests, but I think many of these [law enforcement] people are watching Lou Dobbs and watching what Sheriff Arpaio in Phoenix is doing and trying to emulate that model," he said.

CNN's Dobbs has been a vocal critic of illegal immigration, while Arpaio, of Maricopa County, Ariz., is both revered and reviled for his tough enforcement of immigration laws.

Local law enforcement agencies can only enforce immigration law if they have a 287 (G) agreement with ICE. More than five dozen local police or sheriff's departments around the country do; none are in Pennsylvania, according to information posted on the ICE Web site.

But Montgomery, Bucks and Philadelphia counties are part of ICE's Secure Communities program, meaning that whenever anyone is booked by local law enforcement, their fingerprints are run through a DHS database to screen for criminal convictions and immigration status.

That program could be expanded to Lancaster County by 2013, according to ICE.

"The current [presidential] administration is all about enforcement," said Silas M. Ruiz-Steele, an attorney in the Berks County office of Barley Snyder LLC who chairs the practice's Immigration Group, advising corporate clients on immigration issues. She was unaware why so many more illegal immigrants are being apprehended in Lancaster County, but noted that "before we see major changes in the immigration system, we're going to see enforcement picking up. ... I'm seeing and hearing of a lot of activity, and it seems to be happening everywhere."

McKim, of Ephrata police, said the increased responsiveness of federal authorities tends to encourage police officers who might have questions about someone's immigration status.

"In years gone by, you'd call [federal officials] and they'd say, 'Get the suspect's current info and release

him,' " McKim said. Now police are "more confident we're going to get a better response, and it's not going to be an exercise in futility."

Mark Medvesky, a public affairs spokesman for ICE, confirmed McKim's take.

"I don't perceive it as a surge in enforcement," Medvesky said, "but we respond to what we get, and it may be that police departments are more aware of us now."

Megan Bremer is the lead attorney for the Pennsylvania Immigration Resource Center in York, which provides legal and educational resources to those detained at the York County Prison on immigration violations. "We haven't noticed a sudden surge in guys from Lancaster, though there have been a few, and last month there was a surge in Spanish-speaking people — the docket was particularly large," she said.

In many communities, she said, there are "safe houses" where "if people are coming in from some place like El Salvador, people know they can go to this one house while getting settled. But if immigration shows up, the whole house gets busted."

Nonetheless, she said, local police have to be extremely careful when it comes to immigration issues. "They're really not supposed to be asking for [immigration] papers unless there's some other reason they're stopping a person," Bremer said. "There's such a fine line to avoid racial profiling."

Sgt. Rudzinski, of Manheim Township police, said officers are aware of the line and are careful not to cross it.

"When an officer asks for ID and someone can't produce it," it can lead to suspicion, he said — and to a phone call to ICE.

"Just because a person doesn't have an ID — lots of people don't — but you wonder why," he said. "It doesn't just jump out at you, but sometimes it comes out in conversation" that a person is in the country illegally.

"We're not actually charging [immigrants] with anything," he said. "We're just holding them for the federal government."

http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/244242

More people breaking laws are being caught by law enforcement officers?? What a shame....